Business Advice
What does it take to successfully scale?
By Tom Smith, partner at Brabners
SIX LESSONS FROM THIS YEAR’ S BIBAS
Scaling a business is exciting but it can also be one of the most challenging periods in the life of a company and the people running it.
The best scale-up businesses make growth look straightforward from the outside. In reality, rapid expansion brings evolving challenges across people, process, leadership, cashflow and culture. Things that worked perfectly well when a business employed 10 people can become much harder when there are 50, 100 or more.
The changing dynamics of scale-up
46 | Autumn 2026 businesses was one of the things that struck me the most while judging the Scale-Up Business of the Year at this year’ s Be Inspired Business Awards( BIBAs), run by the North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce, which Brabners was proud to sponsor.
The process is deliberately rigorous. It began with interviews at Preston North End in May, followed by the hugely enjoyable BIBAs on Tour, when the judging panel visited shortlisted businesses in their own environments.
These visits are particularly valuable. They enable judges to get beyond the presentation and numbers, meet the people and see first-hand how growth is being created.
SIX THINGS STOOD OUT FOR ME:
1 There is no single route to scale
One of the first things that struck me is that there is no single blueprint for scaling a business.
Companies scale at different stages of their development and in very different ways. For some, growth might be relatively modest and incremental. For others it can be genuinely transformative.